Arctic Climate Surprise

Arctic climate surprise reported in news@nature 31 May 2006 and Nature vol. 441, p606 1 June 2006. In August 2004 the Arctic Coring Expedition aboard the "Vidar Viking" drilled a 430m (1,410 ft) core of sediment from the Lomonosov ridge on the floor of the Arctic Ocean, 250 km (155 miles) from the North Pole. Scientists have now studied the organic carbon from shells and algae in the core sediment and used the isotopic composition of the carbon to calculate the temperatures of the Polar region in the past. They concluded that during the Eocene period, (approx. 55 million years ago) the temperatures around the North Pole were almost 24 degrees Celsius (75F), the temperature differences between the poles and equator were a lot less and the Arctic cooled down about the same time as the Antarctic. The researchers said the results were inexplicable by current climate models. One of the expedition leaders, Jan Backman, a marine geologist at Stockholm University, Sweden, commented: "This is a major, major surprise." Suggestions for the unexpectedly balmy climate around the North Pole include greenhouse gases, heat-trapping stratospheric clouds and hurricane induced ocean mixing.

Editorial Comment: It is no surprise to Biblical Creationists that there is evidence for the Arctic regions having being pleasantly mild in the past. Genesis describes a world that was surrounded by "waters above" which would have had a greenhouse effect until the time of Noah’s flood. After the flood God told Noah there would be extremes of climate for the remaining history of the world. Snow and ice are not specifically mentioned until the book of Job. This new report is not the first evidence that the world once had a more uniform and mild climate. The fossil record all over the world indicates the world was once filled with large animals and plants that could only have lived in a world that had a much better climate and food supply. For example, see Arctic Fossils Indicate Warm climate, Evidence News 10 Mar 2004. (Ref. meteorology, degeneration, atmosphere)